Margaret Atwood said: “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” Well, we’ve certainly got that down. This starting new plants thing goes like gangbusters around here. The “getting them to maturity and harvesting a crop” part is touch and go.
We have a big yard and easily have room for a garden plot, but our particular brand of benign neglect is hard on projects like that. (I say that as though our yard is not currently looking very, very spiffy. After several days of rain, the freshly cut grass actually managed to be two feet tall in spots, so the Big Loud Thing logged yet MORE time with the mower, and everything is quite ship-shape right now. Give it a week or six and then we’ll see.) Plus, I am terrible at ushering things through the transition to outdoors. I’ve got a lot of little green bodies on my hands.
I do love it so, though. It just doesn’t feel like spring until we start some seeds with the kids. This year, we are doing one thing at a time instead of starting everything at once. We are either thinking this will cut down on the slaughter, or that we won’t find it as depressing when I kill one thing at a time. Or something. I’m not really sure.
Hopefully, I’m teaching the boys about seed germination and plant reproduction and not just “Mom keeps planting things and always kills them.” Or maybe that’s a lesson in the value of perseverance. I guess sometimes, it really is all in how you frame it. Try, try again, right? (And last year, we got Cosmos out of it, which I am now totally in love with, so we are not complete lost causes, I promise.)
How about you mamas? I know some of you take on big garden plots. I’d love to see your pictures, whether you’re skilled and ambitious or have a little something tucked under a lamp, like us!
See more of our Gardening Adventures in Start a Mini Greenhouse. I hope you’ll plant some yellow daisies, and think of the Wise and Wonderful Betty Gray. Seed lesson resources are listed below the photo gallery. Happy Gardening!
- Seed to plant lesson and craft from Lesson Plans to Pots and Pans.
- Visit Hubpages for this list of Propagation activities.
- Make self-watering planters from 2 liter bottles. (This might help with my holocaust problem, and it also indulges my soda addiction. Perfect.)
- Use an old milk jug to make a mini greenhouse. Courtesy of A Garden for the House.
- A PDF full of ideas for K-2 lessons from realtrees4kids.org.
My granddaughter has a bean plant she started at school and is now on her windowsill and growing.